List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots

There have been many multiple assassination attempts on presidents of the United States; there have been 17 attempts to kill sitting and former presidents as well as presidents-elect. Four attempts on sitting Presidents have succeeded: Abraham Lincoln (the 16th president), James A. Garfield (the 20th president), William McKinley (the 25th president) and John F. Kennedy (the 35th president). Two other presidents were injured in attempted assassinations.

Assassinations

Abraham Lincoln

Main article: Abraham Lincoln assassination

The Abraham Lincoln assassination, took place on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, at approximately 10 p.m. President Abraham Lincoln was shot by actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre with his wife and two guests. Lincoln died the following day—April 15, 1865—at 7:22 a.m., in the home of William Petersen.

James A. Garfield

Main article: James A. Garfield assassination

The James A. Garfield assassination took place in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 a.m. on July 2, 1881, less than four months after Garfield took office. Charles J. Guiteau was the assassin. Garfield died 11 weeks later, on September 19, 1881.

William McKinley

Main article: William McKinley assassination

The assassination of William McKinley took place on September 6, 1901, at the Temple of Music, in Buffalo, New York. President William McKinley, attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, was shot twice by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist.

John F. Kennedy

Main article: John F. Kennedy assassination

The assassination of John F. Kennedy took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. The ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963–1964 concluded that Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza. The United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976–1979 determined that Kennedy's murder was probably the result of a conspiracy that included Oswald.

Attempted assassinations

Andrew Jackson

Illustration of Jackson's attempted assassination

January 30, 1835: At the Capitol Building, a house painter named Richard Lawrence aimed two flintlock pistols at the President, but both misfired, one of them while Lawrence stood within 13 feet (4 m) of Jackson and the other at point-blank range. Lawrence was apprehended after Jackson beat him with a cane. Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution until his death in 1861.

Theodore Roosevelt

October 13, 1912: Three and a half years after he left office, Roosevelt was running for President as a member of the Progressive Party. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, John Schrank, a saloon-keeper from New York, shot Roosevelt once with a revolver. A 100-page speech folded over twice and the metal glasses case in Roosevelt's breast pocket slowed the bullet. Amidst the commotion, Roosevelt yelled out "Quiet! I've been shot." Roosevelt insisted on giving his speech with the bullet still lodged inside him. He later went to the hospital, but the bullet was never removed. Roosevelt, remembering that William McKinley died after operations to remove his bullet, chose to have his remain. Schrank said that McKinley's ghost had told him to avenge his assassination. Schrank was found legally insane and was institutionalized until his death in 1943.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

February 15, 1933 (one month before being sworn in for his first term in office): In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara fired five shots at Roosevelt. Four people were wounded and the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, was killed. Zangara was found guilty of murder and was executed March 20, 1933. Some researchers believe Cermak, not Roosevelt, was the intended target that day, as the mayor was a staunch foe of Al Capone's Chicago mob organization.

Harry S Truman

Main article: Truman assassination attempt

In 1950, two Puerto Rican pro-independence activists attempted to kill Truman, resulting in the murder of one White House police officer and the death of one assassin; Truman was not harmed.

John F. Kennedy

December 11, 1960: While vacationing in Palm Beach, Florida, President-elect John F. Kennedy's life was threatened by Richard Paul Pavlick, a 73-year-old former postal worker. Pavlick's plan was to serve as a suicide bomber by crashing his dynamite-laden 1950 Buick into Kennedy's vehicle, but the plan was disrupted when Pavlick saw Kennedy's wife and daughter bidding him goodbye. That attack of conscience foiled the opportunity, with Pavlick's arrest by the Secret Service coming three days later after he was stopped for a driving violation, with the dynamite still in his car. Pavlick spent the next six years in both federal prison and mental institutions before being released in December 1966.

Richard M. Nixon

First assassination attempt

April 14, 1972: Milwaukee, Wisconsin native Arthur Bremer arrived in Ottawa, Ontario on April 10 and spent five days in Canada's national capital in an effort to shoot and kill President Nixon, who was visiting the country during this time. On April 14, Nixon made a public appearance in a limousine at Parliament Hill, which Bremer attended, carrying a loaded revolver in his pocket. The presence of Vietnam War protesters and Canadian nationalists, however, led to increased security surrounding the President, and Bremer had great difficulty getting within firing range of Nixon. He did manage finally to get close enough, but the President was traveling by in his limousine with the windows closed, and Bremer was unsure whether any bullets would go through the glass of Nixon's limo. As a result, he didn't open fire and the President sped past unharmed. The following month Bremer shot U.S. Democratic Presidential candidate George Wallace, lodging a bullet in his spine and leaving him paralyzed for life.

Second assassination attempt

February 22, 1974: Samuel Byck, planned to kill Nixon by crashing a commercial airliner into the White House. Once on the plane, he was informed that it could not take off with the wheel blocks still in place. He shot the pilot and copilot before killing himself. The events surrounding this assassination attempt were portrayed in the film The Assassination of Richard Nixon.

Gerald R. Ford

First assassination attempt

File:Frommeassassinationattempt.jpg

On September 5, 1975, President Gerald Ford being rushed to safety after the assassination attempt of Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme.

September 5, 1975: In Sacramento, California, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, drew a Colt .45 caliber pistol on Ford when he reached to shake her hand in a crowd. There were four cartridges in the pistol's magazine but the firing chamber was empty. She was soon restrained by a Secret Service agent. Fromme was sentenced to life in prison.

Second assassination attempt

September 22, 1975: In San Francisco, California, Sara Jane Moore fired a revolver at Ford from 40 feet (12 m) away. The shot missed Ford because a bystander, Oliver Sipple, grabbed Moore's arm. Moore was sentenced to life in prison. She was later paroled on Monday, December 31, 2007 from a federal prison after serving more than 30 years.

Jimmy Carter

May 5, 1979: Ten minutes before Carter was about to speak at the civic center mall in Los Angeles, Raymond Lee Harvey was arrested carrying a pistol. He later told authorities that he and another man were hired to create a diversion so that Mexican hit men armed with sniper rifles could kill Carter. Charges against him were dismissed for lack of evidence.

Ronald Reagan

Main article: Reagan assassination attempt

George H.W. Bush

April 13, 1993: Sixteen men, in the alleged employment of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, smuggled a car bomb into Kuwait with the intent of killing Bush as he spoke at Kuwait University. The plot was foiled when Kuwaiti officials found the bomb and arrested the suspected assassins. Bush had left office in January 1993. On June 26 1993, the U.S. launched a missile attack targeting Baghdad intelligence headquarters in retaliation for the attempted attack against Bush. The Iraqi Intelligence Service, particularly Directorate 14, was accused of being behind the plot.

Bill Clinton

October 29, 1994: Francisco Martin Duran fired at least 29 shots with a semi-automatic rifle at the White House from a fence overlooking the north lawn, thinking that Clinton was among the men in dark suits standing there (Clinton was in the White House Residence watching a football game). Luckily, a tourist named Harry Rakosky tackled Duran before he could injure anyone. Duran was found to have a suicide note in his pocket and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.

George W. Bush

February 7, 2001: While President George W. Bush was occupied in the White House Residence, Washington, DC, Robert Pickett, standing outside the perimeter fence, discharged a number of shots from a weapon in the direction of the White House. Eileen O'Connor, CNN Correspondent, reported: 'the U.S. Park Police said that the type of handgun that was -- that was confiscated, if it was an unobstructed view to the White House, could -- a bullet could have reached the White House. But there are a lot of trees, a lot of bushes between this sidewalk, where the suspect was, Robert Pickett, and the White House, so that there was obstructions, mainly trees and bushes' . Following a standoff of about ten minutes, the incident ended when a Secret Service officer shot Pickett, resulting in an injury which required hospital surgery, and Pickett was found to have a history of emotional problems and employment grievances. Lacking conclusive evidence that Mr. Bush was a personal target (although the accused had indeed written to the President on the subject of his grievances), a court in July, 2001 sentenced Pickett to three years in jail in connection with the incident .

May 10, 2005: While President George W. Bush was giving a speech in the Freedom Square in Tbilisi, Georgia, Vladimir Arutyunian threw a live Soviet-made RGD-5 hand grenade towards the podium where he was standing and where Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili and their two wives and officials were seated. It landed in the crowd 61 feet (18 m) from the podium after hitting a girl, but did not detonate because of a chance malfunction in its detonator.

Arutyunian was arrested in July 2005. He was convicted in January 2006, and was given a life sentence.

Presidential deaths rumored to be assassinations

Zachary Taylor

On July 4, 1850, President Zachary Taylor was diagnosed by his physicians with cholera morbus, a term that included diarrhea and dysentery but not true cholera. Cholera, typhoid fever, and food poisoning have all been indicated as the source of the president's ultimately fatal gastroenteritis. More specifically, a hasty snack of iced milk, cold cherries and pickled cucumbers consumed at an Independence Day celebration might have been the culprit. By July 9, Taylor was dead.

In 1991, with permission from his descendants, Taylor's body was exhumed, and Larry Robinson and Frank Dyer conducted an autopsy at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. At the exhumation, observers noted that Taylor's body, while somewhat decomposed, was still instantly recognizable as the 12th President — Taylor's brow ridge remained intact. Investigating the possibility of assassination by means of deliberate poisoning, Dyer and Robinson detected traces of arsenic and sent the results to a Kentucky medical examiner, who determined the quantity of arsenic present — there is a faint amount of arsenic present naturally in the human body — was several hundred times less than there would have been had he been poisoned with arsenic. Despite these findings, assassination theories have not been entirely put to rest. Michael Parenti devoted a chapter in his controversial 1999 book History as Mystery to what he called "The Strange Death of Zachary Taylor." In it, he speculates that Taylor was assassinated and that his autopsy was botched.

Warren G. Harding

In June 1923, President Warren G. Harding set out on a cross-country "Voyage of Understanding," planning to meet ordinary people and explain his policies. During this trip, he became the first president to visit Alaska. Rumors of corruption in his administration were beginning to circulate in Washington by this time, and Harding was profoundly shocked by a long message he received while in Alaska, apparently detailing illegal activities previously unknown to him. At the end of July, while traveling south from Alaska through British Columbia, he developed what was thought to be a severe case of food poisoning. He gave the final speech of his life to a large crowd at the University of Washington Stadium (now Husky Stadium) at the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington. A scheduled speech in Portland, Oregon was canceled. The President's train proceeded south to San Francisco. Arriving at the Palace Hotel, he developed pneumonia. Harding died of either a heart attack or a stroke at 7:35 p.m. on August 2 1923. The formal announcement, printed in the New York Times of that day, stated that "A stroke of apoplexy was the cause of death." He had been ill exactly one week.

Naval physicians surmised that he had suffered a heart attack; however, this diagnosis was not made by U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Charles E. Sawyer, who was traveling with the presidential party. Mrs. Harding refused permission for an autopsy, which soon led to speculation that the President had been the victim of a plot, possibly carried out by his wife. Gaston B. Means, an amateur historian and gadfly, noted in his book The Strange Death of President Harding (1930) that the circumstances surrounding his death lent themselves to some suspecting he had been poisoned. Several individuals attached to him, personally and politically, would have welcomed Harding's death, as they would have been disgraced in association by Means' assertion of Harding's "imminent impeachment." Although Means was later discredited for publicly accusing Mrs. Harding of the murder, enough doubts surround the President's death to keep reputable scholars open to the possibility of murder.